Background and Aim: Needle stick injuries can cause transmission of 3 important blood viruses (HCV-HBV-HIV) to health care personnel. Generally these injuries inflict loss of life and property on the health care personnel, so that the medical associations of different industrial countries have scheduled important plans in order to take care of patients, provide personnel education and guarantee the health of physicians and medical staff. Considering the prevalence rate of blood-borne diseases in African and Asian countries, as well as our country, it is important to scrutinize the reasons and prevalence rate of these injuries to take proper preventive measures. This study was conducted with the aim of determination of the prevalence rate of needle stick injuries in the personnel of health care centers of Kurdistan’s medical university.
Materials and Methods: This descriptive-Analytic study was conducted in the university’s hospitals. A questionnaire including necessary information was designed and sent to the personnel of the hospitals. The sampling method was census. 847 individuals filled out the questionnaires. The collected data were analyzed by means of SPSS statistical software.
Results: The findings of this study showed that the majority (73.7%) of the subjects were female. The mean age was (36.1±7.07) years old. Most of the subjects had the bachelor degree (47.9%) (74.5%) of them were nurses, %5.5 midwives, 3.3% anesthetists, 7.7% personnels of the laboratory and 9% were the radiology staff. About 57.5% of the subjects had experienced splashing of blood or secretions into their mouth or eyes. In most cases, needles and angiocatheters were responsible for injuries in 43.77% and 35.3% of the cases respectively. According to the staff`s opinion the most important predisposing factors included haste and being inundated with work. There was a significant difference between professions and needle stick injuries (p<0.05).
Conclusion: Prevention of needle stick injuries should be regarded a priority. Providing safe medical equipments regardless of their costs, in addition to necessary education for health care staff, should be taken into consideration. Special centers for treatment and follow up of the injured personnel should be allocated.